Omen of a Bluebell

After being thoroughly cowed by what is clearly an evil doppelganger of my sister, we settle in to watch the rest of the matches.

“Yeah, I only got adequate across the board. The notes were pretty much what I expected too,” she says with a sigh.

Then she lifts her head off my shoulder, her voice becoming monotone and disgustingly professional.

“Student lacks formal training, highly suggested she be shifted to focus on her magic or admitted to physical combat classes. Student’s creative fighting style puts her in danger. Student takes hits when she could have dodged them,” she rattles off.

She lets her head flop back onto my shoulder with a groan. “Is this one of those ‘tear them down so you can build them back up’ things? Because if so, I don’t like it.”

I just chuckle. “You should’ve seen mine,” I say, then shift into a mockery of my own proctors. “Student relies excessively on self-recovery. Student is a risk to her opponents because she lacks control. Student requires extra supervisors.”

She rises to gape at me, outraged. “They didn’t!”

I nod, laughing.

“Those assholes! Point them out to me, I’ll shove a tentacle so far up their—”

“Whoa, there!” I interrupt, pulling her into a hug. “No need for all that. It’s fine. They didn’t actually say it like that.”

I fail to hold back my laugh at her protectiveness.

“Yeah, well, they still deserve to get it,” she scowls.

I just shake my head. “My control really is lacking, though. Did you know I can’t do small?”

She quirks a brow at me, confused.

“Like, I can grab all the mana around us—but I can’t grab just the mana around my hand.”

“What? Why’s that matter?”

Oh, Cari… now I know where I get it from.

“Because instead of suffocating an entire field with my Hemokinesis, I could have suffocated just my opponent,” I chuckle.

She starts, then stops, her mouth half open with a protest that died in her throat.

“Huh,” she finally says, sounding thoughtful.

Then she shrugs.

“Bigger is better anyways.”

I burst into laughter, realizing that we’re both part of the problem.

“What? It’s not that funny, is it?” she asks.

I explain between chuckles. “I just realized we’re both awful influences for one another is all.”

She grins. “Great minds think alike!”

Awful innuendos aside, we eventually calm down enough to watch the matches still ongoing, and I get to enjoy snuggling up to Cari all the while.

After the hectic fights, it’s kind of nice just relaxing.

“How’d you lose in the first place?” she asks.

“Heh, you might not believe this. You remember that girl with the spear from the first round of duels?”

She pulls back a little. “Seriously? A spear fighter got you?”

That’s when I realize I’m smiling at the memory. I actually feel a measure of pride at having managed to push her so hard.

I snort. “Not just any spear fighter. She read me like a book, even when my Fae Ferocity Skill activated. I don't think she even used Skills for most of it.”

At that, Cari seems truly shocked.

“Well,” I quickly add, “right up until the end, at least. It took a bit, but I forced her hand.”

Cari eyes me critically. “You seem awfully happy about losing.”

I shrug. “It was a really good fight.”

“Uh-huh… Don’t piss off the spear girl, got it,” Cari says, nodding seriously before settling back into my side.

“Seraphine,” I say.

“Huh?”

“It’s her name. Seraphine.”

Her lips curve into a shit-eating grin. “Not afraid Bella will get jealous?”

I flush at that. “What? We’re not—it’s not—!”

“Oh? Well, alright then,” she demurs.

I can all but feel the mischief all but radiating from her, so I immediately go on the attack. When I lock her in place at my side and start tickling her, her smug grin is quickly replaced with a look of panic.

“Emi, wait, I was just teasing—Ah!”

I torture her for a bit, but stop when we start drawing more eyes than I care to have on us. Once she settles back in, we continue scanning the field for Bella.

“Y’know, I’m glad you’re back to normal with that medicine. I was worried for a while there,” she says, her voice low.

I lay my head atop where hers rests on my shoulder and nod, my heart swelling with contentment.

"Love you too," I say, just loud enough that she alone can hear it over the noise of the arena.

She may joke about it, but I know she cares deeply. I already knew she was worrying about me these past few days. It’s why she never left my side unless it was absolutely necessary.

For a while after that, my attention drifts from chatting with Cari to watching the ongoing matches.

I catch the flash of one of the barriers, signaling the start of another match. Another time, I watch as someone gets launched through a jungle, crashing through shrubs and trees alike.

Most of the noise from the fights themselves is muted though, except in some especially flashy matches, like the one where Bella made that ice drill.

After nearly an hour, I spot her again.

I watch as she enters the barrier of her assigned platform—a plain platform this time, with no artificial biomes—only for her to quickly be followed by the far too vocal fire Mage from group five.

My eyes sparkle with delight at the sight, though I also feel a twinge of worry for Bella.

I know she’s strong, but with as much firepower as that girl has to throw around, will she be okay?

“Who do you think would win? Bella or Seraphine?” Cari asks suddenly.

I shake off the thought and point towards the barrier Bella’s in as I take a second to give Cari’s question some consideration.

I come to a conclusion almost immediately based on one simple fact: Seraphine seems to struggle against large scale attacks. And large scale magic seems to be Bella’s specialty, if her last match is anything to go by.

Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if she could just freeze Seraphine the moment the match starts.

Unless her weird anti-magic nonsense can save her from it...

“Bella would win, I think,” I say, just as Cari’s eyes finally lock onto the platform I’m pointing at.

She gasps. “Oh, gods, this is going to be good.”

The match begins like any other, with a flash of the barrier. In the same instant, the noisy girl throws a fireball the size of a carriage at Bella. This time, Bella doesn’t summon her ice throne.

Instead, she holds a hand up in front of her, palm facing the fire girl, and two massive walls of ice solidify before her and come together at an angle. The fireball slams into it and is split in half, with each part flying off to either side of her.

Then the walls begin to grow.

Taller, longer, with additional sections phasing into existence. Bella takes a step forward, and the wall moves with her, getting a step closer to her opponent.

Another section appears, giving the wall an almost horseshoe like shape.

Then it’s like her opponent unleashes the hells themselves on the field.

She seems to detonate, flames roiling out in massive waves. They slam into the ice wall Bella conjured, sweeping over and around it in a haze of heat. The walls themselves start to rapidly melt all across its surface, letting off great gouts of steam as the water is near instantly evaporated.

Cari’s hand clenches mine tightly, sharing in my nerves as my tail lashes at my side. Neither of us speak.

Bella takes another step, visibly struggling against the force of the flames, but never once being pushed back. Even when the flames wrap around her wall and begin to lick at her sides, she simply summons extra walls to protect her from all angles.

Her opponent starts to focus the flames forward, aiming right at the first two sections of the wall Bella summoned. The waves of fire collapse into white hot gout so dense that it almost seems like a massive version of an enchanted welder.

That's when Bella is forced to reinforce the first sections she summoned, and I realize it might be worse than I thought when she dips her free hand into the pouch of arcanite at her side.

She’s draining the shards for mana.

Is she running out? Why doesn’t she summon her throne? Doesn’t that make her stronger or something?

I don’t actually know what any of her Skills are or what they do, but from the match we saw, it definitely acts as a force multiplier of some kind.

So why… what is she planning?

She takes another step.

With the flames so condensed and no longer hiding her opponent, I can see the mouthy girl again.

And, shocker of shockers, her mouth is moving. She wears a confident grin as she no doubt spews an endless stream of bullshit, though I blessedly can’t hear it through the barrier.

Poor Bella.

Now, though, I doubt Bella is listening either. The center of her ice wall is melting so fast that instead of repairing it, she starts to collapse the outer sections inward to reinforce it from behind.

Those don’t last very long, either.

She takes another step.

Then her face splits into a grin so broad that I question whether or not I’m seeing things. I blink a few times, and even rub my eyes, but no—she’s grinning.

For a moment, I feel a stupid little pang of jealousy that it isn't aimed at me.

Then everything changes.

Like her first match, cold snaps into place around her in a rapidly growing circle, freezing the ground itself. The air turns to mists of cold that seep onto the ground before dispersing, despite the heat of her opponents flames.

Behind her, a familiar ice throne appears, and she takes a seat, one hand still outstretched and the other still buried in her pouch.

Slowly, almost languidly, her posture shifts. Every bit of tension seems to bleed from her before flowing away with the waves of cold, and she drops the hand that was maintaining the walls.

The flames burst through the center and scream forward, rapidly closing in on Bella, and—

And we're all suddenly made to realize why Bella closed the distance. Cari inhales sharply, telling me she’s also come to a similar conclusion.

The frost that expands around her throne, spreading through the ground and air, stops just a few steps behind her opponent. There, behind her, walls denser than any she’d conjured before instantly phase into existence, surrounding the mouthy woman.

At the same time, the fiery jet stops a mere breath from Bella’s chest, the flames somehow magically frozen solid.

I can actually see the moment realization dawns on the fire girls face.

Surprisingly, she actually doesn't let the surprise get to her and immediately changes tactics. She dashes to the side in a sudden burst of flame, aiming to get around the walls before they trap her…

And slams right into a wall of ice that appears the moment she starts moving.

She stumbles back, face twisted with pain and a broken nose adding insult to injury.

Or rather, she tries to stumble back.

Her feet are frozen to the ground, her shoes being slowly encased in ice. It creeps up, threatening to spread to her legs, and then the battle shifts again.

Great, massive wings of flame tear free from her back as her body unravels into living fire. Bone, flesh, and cloth burn away in an instant, replaced by something incandescent.

The heat spikes so sharply that even through the barrier I feel it prickle across my skin. The air itself screams as it’s turned into fuel, flames spiraling upward in a column bright enough to blind me for a moment.

I’ve only ever read about them. Ancient creatures of rebirth and annihilation, spoken of in fairytales and only ever followed by disasters and warnings.

It's a phoenix.

In the arena.

Where a girl stood a heartbeat ago, a creature of living fire now beats its wings, each stroke shedding embers that scatter across the ice like falling stars, melting through it and the stone alike.

It’s massive beak opens with a soundless cry, thanks to the barrier, but I can feel the vibration of it in my chest all the same.

Then its wings beat in an attempt to fling itself out of Bella’s zone of influence, to get distance from her once more.

Bella is faster.

Her hand comes down as if to swat the creature from the sky, and its wings lock up mid-air, turning to solid ice through some magic I can’t even begin to understand the rules of.

It falls, wings shattering into thousands of prismatic fragments, only to begin rapidly regrowing them. It’s barely half a step from where the frozen ground ends. The edge of Bella’s domain.

It stands quickly, clearly trying to cross that final distance, but Bella slams nearly two dozen massive ice spikes into the creature from above, piercing straight through it and pinning it to the ground.

They melt nearly as fast as she summons them—but only nearly.

She clenches a trembling fist before her, clearly struggling with so much output but still managing to look every bit the queen glaring down on a creature that dared to step foot in her domain.

Each spike lands and explodes into steam, and then even steam itself evaporates.

Still, they keep coming. More and more slam into the creature as it struggles to fight back, until it’s raining spears of ice too fast for its flames to resist.

Magical frost creeps from the gaping wounds the spikes leave behind, even as they are melted. It spreads, each new spike that pins the creature anew adding to previous spikes work, making the living flames slower and slower.

After nearly a full minute of this, the phoenix finally disappears in haze of heat.

Laying face down on the ground with a spear of ice pinning her to the ground through her side is the mouthy fire girl.

Unconscious.

Dozens of barriers flare to life then, just as many proctors swarming onto the platform to ensure the combat ends before anything else happens.

For a moment, the entire arena is quiet.

Even the duels that were occurring nearest Bella’s platform were halted when the phoenix appeared.

Then Cari screams with delight, and the arena follows, erupting into incoherent praise.

A few, like me, simply watch on in stunned silence.

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